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Venezuela Economic Crisis to Only Get Worse, Barclays Says

A ship arrives at the port in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, on Aug. 24, 2015. Venezuela is suffering the deepest economic crisis in its history with output expected to contract 9.1 percent this year, Barclays Plc said Friday. The economic contraction will likely reach 16.5 percent between 2014 and 2016, while inflation over that period will exceed 1,000 percent, Barclays wrote in a note to clients. “It is impossible to understand why the government is not reacting to this reality, why it has not taken measures to alleviate the economic distortions that are destroying the real income of Venezuelans,” Barclays said. President Nicolas Maduro will not likely announce any changes in economic policy before congressional elections Dec. 6, the bank said. With support for the ruling Socialist party at around 19 percent, the country is politically divided as it also battles low prices for oil, which accounts for 95 percent […]

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Brazil pledges to slash emissions by 43%

Brazil pledged on Sunday to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 as its contribution to a United Nations climate agreement, but said it will include reductions from past efforts against deforestation to help it reach the target. President Dilma Rousseff presented the country’s pledges during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, noting the targets are more ambitious than those of most developed countries and that Brazil will not need external support to achieve them. Brazil already curbed emissions by 41 percent between 2005 and 2012, largely through fighting deforestation. Rousseff reaffirmed the country’s commitment to ending that illegal practice in the Amazon , as stated during a joint announcement with U.S. President Barack Obama in June, but fell short of declaring a freeze on deforestation in general as many environmental groups had sought. Emissions from deforestation worldwide account for 15 percent of […]

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Transocean Cited in Petrobras Carwash Corruption Investigation

Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore rig contractor, is being linked for the first time to the corruption probe of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-owned energy giant at the center of Brazil’s biggest corporate scandal. A former executive at Brazil’s state-run oil company has testified to receiving what he says were payments made by someone claiming to be a Transocean agent in exchange for a rig-operation contract from Petrobras. “Transocean has a long-standing commitment to and upholds the highest standards for corporate ethics and compliance,” the company said in an e-mailed response. “Our employees — and everyone conducting business on our behalf — are required to adhere to our high standards for integrity, honesty, financial discipline and legal and regulatory compliance.” As a result of the probe into the alleged pay-to-play scheme, known as Carwash, Petrobras has temporarily blocked more than 20 suppliers from future work with the oil […]

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Petrobras Sees ‘Great Wave’ of $100-Oil Never Coming Back

It’s unlikely that oil prices will ever return to $100 a barrel and Petroleo Brasileiro SA needs to work with suppliers to manage the price rout, an executive at the state-run oil producer said Tuesday. “We were all surfing the great wave of $100 a barrel,” Cristina Pinto, the company’s executive manager for exploration and production said at an event in Rio de Janeiro. “It won’t get to $100 again. If it gets to $70, we’ll be happy.” Shares tumble 60% in a year as Brent sinks to less than $50 a barrel The world’s largest producer in ultra-deep waters is working to optimize technology to cut costs and save in everything from buoys to riser pipes used at its offshore platforms, Pinho said. Chief Executive Officer Aldemir Bendine said Monday that the company seeks to reduce costs to withstand a combination of lower oil prices and a weaker […]

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Venezuelan leader says to travel to push for OPEC, non-OPEC meeting

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday he would travel shortly to seek support for his push for a summit between OPEC and non-OPEC producers on lower oil prices. Maduro has lobbied for months for an emergency meeting and coordination with non-OPEC nations, but OPEC’s Middle East producers have pledged to maintain high output in a fight to defend market share against rising competition. This week Maduro reiterated calls for action within OPEC and beyond OPEC, mentioning controls on output and price bands. "Probably in coming days I will travel to reinforce work to achieve this historic summit between OPEC producers and non-OPEC producers," Maduro said after a four-hour televised broadcast. His calls for action come as Venezuelan oil prices, which averaged $41.08 last week, exacerbate a dire economic crisis that has goods ranging from cancer medication to car batteries in short supply, while raging inflation slams purchasing power […]

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Opposition in Venezuela Is Unsettled by Leader’s Sentence

Photo At a demonstration in Caracas on Friday, Lilian Tintori read a letter that her husband, Leopoldo López, an opposition leader, had written in prison. Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times CARACAS — A year ago Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan opposition leader, walked at the head of rallies of tens of thousands of people, calling for the exit of President Nicolás Maduro and setting off a wave of demonstrations and unrest as the country boiled with discontent. But on Friday, only a few hundred people showed up at a demonstration to support him, a day after he was convicted and sentenced to nearly 14 years in jail for his role in leading last year’s protests. The small size of the crowd told the story: The opposition finds itself discouraged and off balance even as it retains hopes of winning crucial legislative elections scheduled for December. “In Venezuela […]

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As a Boom Fades, Brazilians Wonder How It All Went Wrong

Photo Applicants at a government-run job center in São Paulo on Thursday. Brazil’s unemployment rate reached a five-year high, 7.5 percent, in July. Credit Andre Penner/Associated Press BRASÍLIA — The president of Brazil should have been ecstatic. She had just won re-election after an intense campaign in which she fiercely defended her role in making Brazil , for a few fleeting years, a rising star on the global stage. But in the days after her victory last October, President Dilma Rousseff was worried, confronted in private deliberations with her closest advisers by signs that Brazil’s triumphs were at risk of coming undone. “We went too far,” Aloízio Mercadante, Ms. Rousseff’s chief of staff, acknowledged publicly this month, describing the sense of alarm as the dust settled after the election and Ms. Rousseff and her aides grappled with the weaknesses in Brazil’s economy. It was not just the drop in […]

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Venezuelan Opposition Leader Is Sentenced to Prison Over a Protest

Photo Leopoldo López in February. Credit Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CARACAS, Venezuela — A judge on Thursday found the Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo López guilty of inciting violence and other charges stemming from his leading role in a large antigovernment protest, according to government television reports. Mr. López, a Harvard-educated former mayor of a wealthy section of Caracas, was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, the television reports said. Critics said the trial was politically motivated and lacked basic guarantees of due process. Lawyers for Mr. López said they were barred from presenting any witnesses or evidence at the trial. “This has been a farce,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch , speaking by telephone from Washington. “It’s a kind of a caricature of a judicial procedure and in violation of fundamental principles of due process, of presumption of innocence.” The […]

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Oil price crash prompts scramble for Caribbean storage tanks

Norwegian Oil tanker ”Champion Spirit” passes beside Havana’s seafront boulevard ”El Malecon” (top) and colonial fortress ”Morro Cabana” before entering the port June 1, 2010. Demand for crude storage in the Caribbean, one of the world’s most important oil hubs, is rising as producers and traders try to ride out the worst price crash in six years by holding onto more barrels or making blends that can be sold for premiums. The last time tanks in the logistically-important islands were this full, during the price collapse of 2009, companies started leasing vessels to use as floating storage. That is not yet happening now, but the only way to get tank space at the moment is to sublease it, said one tank broker with decades of experience. Since June, his firm alone has received requests to lease up to 7.5 million barrels of tankage in a region with some 100 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple